Network Working Group IAB
Request for Comments: 2804 IESG
Category: Informational May 2000
IETF Policy on Wiretapping
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been asked to take a
position on the inclusion into IETF standards-track documents of
functionality designed to facilitate wiretapping.
This memo explains what the IETF thinks the question means, why its
answer is "no", and what that answer means.
1. Summary position
The IETF has decided not to consider requirements for wiretapping as
part of the process for creating and maintaining IETF standards.
It takes this position for the following basic reasons:
- The IETF, an international standards body, believes itself to be
the wrong forum for designing protocol or equipment features that
address needs arising from the laws of individual countries,
because these laws vary widely across the areas that IETF standards
are deployed in. Bodies whose scope of authority correspond to a
single regime of jurisdiction are more appropriate for this task.
- The IETF sets standards for communications that pass across
networks that may be owned, operated and maintained by people from
numerous jurisdictions with numerous requirements for privacy. In
light of these potentially divergent requirements, the IETF
believes that the operation of the Internet and the needs of its
users are best served by making sure the security properties of
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connections across the Internet are as well known as possible. At
the present stage of our ignorance this means making them as free
from security loopholes as possible.
- The IETF believes that in the case of traffic that is today going
across the Internet without being protected by the end systems (by
encryption or other means), the use of existing network features,
if deployed intelligently, provides extensive opportunities for
wiretapping, and should be sufficient under presently seen
requirements for many cases. The IETF does not see an engineering
solution that allows such wiretapping when the end systems take
adequate measures to protect their communications.
- The IETF believes that adding a requirement for wiretapping will
make affected protocol designs considerably more complex.
Experience has shown that complexity almost inevitably jeopardizes
the security of communications even when it is not being tapped by
any legal means; there are also obvious risks raised by having to
protect the access to the wiretap. This is in conflict with the
goal of freedom from security loopholes.
- The IETF restates its strongly held belief, stated at greater
length in [RFC 1984], that both commercial development of the
Internet and adequate privacy for its users against illegal
intrusion requires the wide availability of strong cryptographic
technology.
- On the other hand, the IETF believes that mechanisms designed to
facilitate or enable wiretapping, or methods of using other
facilities for such purposes, should be openly described, so as to
ensure the maximum review of the mechanisms and ensure that they
adhere as closely as possible to their design constraints. The IETF
believes that the publication of such mechanisms, and the
publication of known weaknesses in such mechanisms, is a Good
Thing.
2. The Raven process
The issue of the IETF doing work on legal intercept technologies came
up as a byproduct of the extensive work that the IETF is now doing in
the area if IP-based telephony.
In the telephony world, there has been a tradition of cooperation
(often mandated by law) between law enforcement agencies and
telephone equipment operators on wiretapping, leading to companies
that build telephone equipment adding wiretapping features to their
telephony-related equipment, and an emerging consensus in the
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industry of how to build and manage such features. Some traditional
telephony standards organizations have supported this by adding
intercept features to their telephony-related standards.
Since the future of the telephone seems to be intertwined with the